Sugar can have an impact on dental health, tooth decay was the most common reason for hospital admissions for children aged five to nine in 2012.

A Luton family who have completed the Live Well Luton child weight management programme said: “The programme was really enjoyable for me and my whole family.

“The focus was also about living a healthy life style which shifted the attention away from food, so the activities and information on exercise and a healthy mind and body helped re-enforce the messages about eating well.

“The food labelling session was a real eye opener and helped us make some really easy changes, one of which was to replace cereal bars in my daughter’s packed lunches with a healthier alternative such as dried fruit, nuts or Jaffa cakes.

“We were also enjoying reading labels whilst shopping and finding that foods we thought was good actually wasn’t and foods we thought actually weren’t that healthy were OK to have once in a while.

“The sugary drinks session was an interesting and enlightening session for my daughter, once she knew how many teaspoons of sugar were in a drink, she was certainly thinking twice about having that drink.”